Transformation through transition: Transition Tours as fieldwork partners delivering Sustainable Education in GEES

Abstract

Sustainability is a key issue in Higher Education (HE). HE’s approach to the overlapping challenges of sustainability will determine its future success. Sustainability research and policy at all levels recognise the need for deep changes to HE and student learning, yet these changes are largely missing from campus and classroom practice. This paper reports on collaborative, in-depth research with Transition Tours, a social enterprise emerging from the Transition Town Movement and considers its potential to foster transformational learning for sustainable education within Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES) fieldwork.

Introduction

This paper reports on qualitative research into the contribution a social enterprise can make towards transitional learning for Sustainable Education within GEES fieldwork. It begins by setting the context of HE’s engagement with Sustainable Education and transitional learning before introducing Transition Tours as the case study and discussing the initial research findings.

Sustainable Education

“Graduates are entering a volatile world and higher education needs to respond to challenging, rapidly changing socio-economic and environmental conditions.” (HEFCE, 2009: 7)

Four imperatives demonstrate the importance of the HE sector rising to Sustainable Education’s challenges. In addition to equipping graduates with the skills and tools they’ll need to not only respond to the turbulence the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) refers to, but play proactive, beneficial roles in creating rich, resilient futures, there is a broader imperative for HE itself to become “a major contributor to society’s efforts to achieve sustainability” (HEFCE, 2010:1). A third imperative is market. Recent research corroborates HEFCE’s (2009: 35) view that “There is a clear niche in the academic marketplace for institutions that wish to champion sustainability”, by highlighting students’ interest in sustainability and its growing importance in university selection (Bone and Agombar, 2011; Sterling, 2012). The fourth imperative is policy. There can be few clearer illustrations of the international policy imperative than the UN’s designation of 2005–2014 as the Decade for Education for Sustainable Development. As this initiative, 14 international HE Declarations, UK policy and the academic literature make clear (Tillbury, 2011; HEFCE, 2009; Sterling, 2012), sustainability requires such significant changes within HE that it amounts to a paradigm shift.

Despite such imperatives, the gap between HE sustainability policies and practice is perfectly illustrated within pedagogy/curriculum, where Sustainable Education requires innovative ways to foster learning and teaching (Maxey, 2009; Ryan and Cotton, in press) integrated throughout all curricula, rather than silo programmes and ‘bolt-on’ modules (Tillbury, 2011; Stirling, 2011). Whilst Sustainble Education is “relevant to everyone, and to virtually all subject areas.” (Sterling, 2012: 2), it is particularly important for the GEES disciplines. Indeed, the GEES community has a particular opportunity and responsibility to engage with Sustainble Education (Chalkley et al. 2008; Planet, 2002).

Our paper contributes to these challenges and integrates Sustainable Education in all GEES curricula by considering Transition Tours (TT) as an innovative approach to fieldwork partnership relevant throughout GEES.

Transformational Learning and Fieldwork

Transformational learning offers valuable ways to begin addressing the lacuna between Sustainble Education pedagogic policy/theory and practice (Haigh, 2011; McEwen et al., 2011). Whilst all experiences and all learning have the potential to be transformative, transformational learning explicitly aims to transform and:

“…implies an inner and outer dimension, a shift in consciousness to embrace an extended sense of relationality.” (Stirling, 2011: 20)

Transformational learning’s potential remains to be proven as most existing work is theoretical, generating calls for practice and research exploring this potential (Taylor, 2007; Stirling, 2011; Tillbury, 2011). This paper joins a recent Special Issue of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (2011) in responding to such calls.

GEES practitioners have been at the forefront of ESD (Chalkley, 2002; Planet, 2002; Ribchester et al., 2009), work-based learning (WBL) (Chalkley, 2000), employability (Planet, 2009; Gedye and Chalkley, 2006), assessment for learning (Hughes and Boyle, 2005) and other pedagogical imperatives relevant to transformational learning for Sustainable Education (Hermann, 2011). McEwan et al. (2011) locate threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (Planet, 2006; Hall, 2011) within transformational learning as each may foster permanent shifts in world views, identities and practices (Hall, 2011). These transformations may be uncomfortable initially, require time and on-going support (Sterling, 2011), yet they may also be rapid and non-linear (Meyer et al., 2010).

Despite some contestation (e.g. Scott et al., 2006), fieldwork has long been viewed as central within GEES (Gold et al., 1991) and capable of supporting key skills learning, and locating classroom, book and web- based knowledge within the real world. More research evaluating fieldworks’ impact on learning is needed to evaluate “Intuition from field teachers, that students learn ‘deeper’ in the field” (Butler, 2008: 7). Initial research suggests fieldwork significantly increases geoscience students’ recall (Elkins and Elkins, 2007) and impacts GEES students’ affective domain of emotions, feelings and values (Boyle et al., 2007). This reflects findings that ‘affective dimensions’ are crucial aspects of transformational learning (Rose et al., 2011: 60). Fieldwork may, therefore, be a valuable vehicle for transformational learning, particularly when applied with continuous critical evaluation and innovation, regard to educational purpose, integration with campus-based learning and appropriate teaching and assessment (Gold et al.,1991; Butler, 2008; Maskall and Stokes, 2009).

Methodology

Our research adopted an in-depth, elaborated case study approach (Rubin and Rubin, 2005), with participatory action research from January 2011 to January 2012 (Kindon et al., 2009) involving 106 students in 8 fieldwork groups, triangulated with semi-structured interviews, dialogic email correspondence and reviewing students’ submitted assignments. Interviews and email exchanges were carried out by an independent researcher to encourage unconstrained responses (Cohen et al., 2007). The research explored the motivation behind and operation of learning and teaching methods, and their impact on HE students and staff.

Case study

Transition Tours (TT) is a social enterprise which has emerged from Transition Town Totnes, the first of 946 transition initiatives worldwide (www.transitionnetwork.org/initiatives) which comprise the Transition Town Movement (TTM). This growing grassroots social movement addresses the ‘triple challenge’ of climate change, peak oil and economic instability, by engaging communities to develop resilience and create locally based, low carbon solutions. There is a growing research interest in TTM, with GEES at the forefront (Hopkins, 2010, 2011; Bailey et al., 2010; North, 2010; Wilson, 2012) and a growing recognition of the value this may bring to teaching.

TT’s programme ranges from half-day visits to week- long residentials. Participants include schools, youth, university, private study, government and business groups, with UK and overseas GEES courses such as Gettysburg College’s Environmental Studies (ES 334: Global Environment and Development) and Bangor University’s BA and BSc Geography, BSc Environmental Planning and Management BSc/BA Sustainable Development students.

Figure 1: A student group exploring the qualities, values and attitudes which they possess and which may contribute to resilient communities. This exercise can also be classroom-based.

Findings

Transformational Sustainable Education learning occurred on every programme evaluated and when part of a longer fieldtrip, students commonly identified TT as their most engaging and memorable experience:

“The Transition Tour has really stayed with me as one of the most significant experiences during my four months abroad. It was by far the most interesting study tour that I participated in and I have integrated my experience in Totnes into my educational studies back home.”

Several factors led to this high impact, including TT’s participatory, experiential pedagogies (Figure 1), mixing classroom and outdoor activities. Most significant was the use of Transition Town Totnes’ living laboratory, described by Nicholas Crane (2011) in his BBC TV series as “the biggest urban brainwave of the century”:

Figure 2a & 2b: Students mixing cobb and constructing a Low Impact roundhouse

“I find experiential learning to be the best way to truly understand a new concept or idea - so actually witnessing some of the projects and hearing from people who were involved first hand was a major benefit.”

Students’ active, personal engagement contributed to their transformational learning. This included hands- on participation (Figures 2a, 2b and 3), whole-cycle production (Figure 4a and b), affective and intellectual domain work, as students explored their values and worldviews through the activities and discussions they were involved in. Transformational learning was enhanced by the practical, everyday language used. Reflecting Bradley et al.’s (2010: 267) view that the word ‘sustainability’ is redundant, TT avoided such abstract terms, instead focusing on issues and ideas of direct meaning to participants’ lives. Similarly, immediate and local impacts were evidenced, so that

“…standard lecture material, oil, economics, resource management...” became “both very personal, as it is immediately relevant to all of us and our way of life, and very practical.”

Another important factor was TT’s positive, solution- orientated focus. Many students contrasted this with their campus-based learning, which, as Sterling (2011) notes, can be disempowering if shocking information on sustainability’s crises is presented without opportunities to act. As this student commented:

“I think one of the reasons it has impacted me is because I found that it was a very positive, successful example of shifting mindsets and lifestyles - which was inspirational as many times in Environmental Science there can be more hardship and difficulties than successes.”

Figure 3: Students about to set sail on the boat they made together

Figure 4a & 4b: Students can interact with each part of this shoe manufacturing business from design to sales

The widespread popularity, even ‘fame’ of Totnes and TTM also added to the appeal:

“Transition Towns were a topic we covered in the [ES 334] course. Our professor was thrilled that several of us in the class had visited Totnes and could provide some firsthand examples and experiences for the class.”

However, not all students were taken with TTT and not all demonstrated transformational learning through the TT component of their fieldwork. TT’s programme is adaptable to the needs of most groups with content comfortably spanning all the GEES disciplines, including Earth Science. However, differing levels of transformational learning were evidenced amongst GEES students: human geographers showed the highest transformational learning, followed by environmental scientists and physical geographers, with geologists showing the lowest transformational learning impacts. As a Geology lecturer commented:

“It [Transition] is the kind of concept some people are really interested in and excited by, other people less so…The topic or concept can divide opinion, which is not a bad thing as it generates debate and discussion.”

The extent to which TT’s component was integrated within GEES fieldwork and campus-based modules significantly influenced transformational learning impacts, reflecting the literature (Gold et al., 1991; Butler, 2008; Maskall and Stokes, 2009). For GEES practitioners seeking transformational learning outcomes, whether working with partners such as TT or not, the guidance is twofold. Firstly, include pre- and post-field learning, ideally integrating this within students’ wider programmes and assessed so as to maximise transformational learning. Robinson (2011) and Sterling (2012) note that HE lecturers are often one of the barriers to transformational Sustainable Education learning, when wedded to established content, assessment and teaching methods, for example. Secondly, then, as GEES practitioners the more we can engage with the emotional and intellectual challenges of Sustainable Education and our own learning transformation, the better we will be able to foster this in our students.

Conclusion

This research shows that external social enterprise providers such as Transition Tours can foster transformational learning for Sustainable Education within GEES fieldwork. This illustrates one way Sustainable Education can be integrated into all curricula, in this case fieldwork curricula, rather than specialist sustainability modules or programmes. Pressures to deliver transformational learning, collaborate with external partners and attract GEES students on tight fieldwork budgets make such findings highly significant for GEES practitioners.

The informal curriculum is essential to Sustainable Education (Winter and Cotton, in press), making it vital to demonstrate congruence between espoused and practiced theory. The irony of GEES fieldtrips addressing sustainability/climate change whilst ignorant of their own ecological footprint (Ribchester et al., 2009) is not lost on students. Such challenges remain for TT due to the TTM’s global success. Integrating these dilemmas into learning and teaching and empowering students to make informed choices about their fieldwork is one response to this, as is the provision of ‘virtual field-trips’. Another response is to question the urge towards distant, exotic fieldwork locations and join calls to celebrate the ‘local exotic’, as Spalding (2011) suggests, collaborating with local organisations to encourage physically, emotionally and intellectually transformational learning.

This paper highlights the value of further research and practice using innovatory ways to develop and deliver transformational learning for Sustainable Education. Although beyond the scope of the current project, long-term, ex post facto research is needed. Transition Tours is one of a range of emerging organisations capable of collaborating with GEES practitioners. As the TTM grows, for example, more collaborative opportunities appear with local Transition Initiatives. This is illustrated by the evolution of TT into a wider social enterprise The Big Green Canoe (www.biggreencanoe.org) and the 2011 launch of the Transition Research Network. By bringing together researchers and practitioners to address key research needs, this network provides an ideal vehicle to contribute to this research agenda, including research into pedagogies of and for transition:

“We often talk about ways to inspire a paradigm shift or societal shift in the way we live and to me, Transition Towns have been the most successful attempt at initiating this change.”

Acknowledgements

Our gratitude goes to all the participants who contributed to this research, giving freely of their ideas, opinions and experiences, as well as to the innovators within the TT and HE GEES communities who created the opportunities reported here.